Low hazard still requires good decision making, especially in committing terrain. Remain cautious around cornices, shallow rocky alpine slopes or terrain where a small sluff or a thin wind slab avalanche could have large consequences.
Cornices are growing fragile with continued cold temperatures. Cornices often fail along ridge crests surprisingly far back from the edge. Cornice failures are a significant hazard on their own - but can also trigger stubborn wind slab avalanches when they fail.
SATURDAY NIGHT: A mix of cloudy and clear skies, light southwest wind, treeline temperatures around -14 C.
SUNDAY: Mostly cloudy with sun breaks and isolated flurries, light southwest wind, treeline temperatures around -11 C.
MONDAY: Mostly cloudy with sun breaks and isolated flurries, light wind, treeline temperatures around -8 C.
TUESDAY: A mix of sun and clouds with isolated flurries, light wind, treeline temperatures around -10 C.
No recent avalanches have been observed. However, cornices are growing fragile with continued cold conditions faceting their bonds. Cornices represent a significant hazard underfoot when travelling along ridge crests as well as when they threaten slopes overhead.
Alpine and upper treeline terrain is heavily wind affected with large regions of scoured surfaces, pockets of soft wind transported snow and pockets of hard wind slab in lee regions or ridge crests. A hard crust is found below 1900 m and increases in thickness with lower elevations. Surface hoar and near-surface faceting continues to develop with cold clear temperatures and is slowly softening these various hard surfaces and also weakening the bonds of cornices.
A solid mid-pack sits above buried crust and facet layers near the bottom of the snowpack (150-200 cm deep). These deeper weaknesses are currently unreactive, but have periodically produced large avalanches in alpine terrain during intense storms.
